Are CMOs Losing Their Best Ideas to The Competition?

In my previous article, I discussed how CMOs can lead more diverse teams and elevate employee engagement in 2019. Last year around this time, I took a hard look at the ways CMOs can mitigate risks when bringing in outside teams.

A fresh calendar year is fast approaching. So, I’d like to dive deeper into ways CMOs can protect both their ideas and talent from falling into enemy hands. And I’ll provide an update on how data security is changing in 2019, which is also creating new threats and opportunities for CMOs looking to protect their golden playbook.

Blockchain Could Help CMOs Protect Their Team’s Intellectual Property in 2019

The media is reporting breathlessly on the rollercoaster valuations of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. That might get the ratings, but I’m more interested in the technology behind bitcoin and other crypto currencies.

Blockchain is the digital ledger system that allows for digital currency to be mined and transferred between internet users. For content marketers, this same technology could help reduce the risk of content being ripped off and duplicated by less scrupulous marketing teams, often overseas.

CMOs know that developing cornerstone content for a marketing campaign requires a serious investment of skilled labor. Great content requires in-depth research and multiple drafts to finely tune the message it conveys to the reader.

Unfortunately, content theft is a major issue for content that’s published online. I think it is highly likely that we’ll see¾as part of the effort to combat fake news a public blockchain ledger that shows when original content has been published online. The source and timestamp can serve as a proof of intellectual rights to the content.

And in a world dominated by Google’s search algorithms, this type of information can help ensure original content producers are not penalized when others rip-off their work, creating duplicate copies online without crediting the original author(s).

A potential side-effect of this blockchain ledger will be a race to pump out content before the other guys. And there will always be efforts to steal content from other people before they hit the publish button on their own sites effectively establishing ownership of stolen content.

Again, I think this type of activity will be most prevalent overseas where bad actors can retreat beyond the reach of law enforcement or judicial proceedings.

Corporate VPNs Will Continue to Benefit From the Rise of Consumer VPN Services

For CMOs, VPNs are essential tools for providing their entire workforce with secure access to internal corporate resources. It’s no secret that governments and corporations are collecting data and logging our use of the internet whenever possible.

And, just as unscrupulous websites plagiarize costly pieces of content, corporate espionage is alive and well as we head into 2019.

The most effective content marketing strategies come from diverse teams of skilled creative. Freelancing is a powerful ingredient, but remote workforces force CMOs to electronically send bits and pieces of their playbook around the world.

Encrypting this kind of sensitive corporate data is a cat-and-mouse game. Corporations roll out new pieces of defensive technology, and hackers find more sophisticated approaches to breaking through. Or they just send Carl in account services a phishing email, which is not always sophisticated, but devastatingly effective, if they can score login credentials.

So, say it with me now, “Two-factor authentication is now mandatory!”

If your team can keep their access credentials out of enemy hands, the latest generation of VPN protocols support bank-grade AES-256 encryption with IKEv2 for fast, secure reconnection. This means that the data being sent around the world is only visible to the source and the authorized recipient.

These newer protocols are the result of an increased public awareness around data security and privacy. The consumer VPN services are contributing to and spurring new corporate VPN enhancements that will continue to make it safe for CMOs to leverage the benefits of outsourced labor.

CMOs Will Have the Power to Defend Their Intellectual Property in 2019

To summarize, 2019 will be an exciting year for CMOs. The type of content that is being consumed, and how we are consuming it is changing. The labor market for skilled content marketers has never been hotter. And we are finally going to start building a better online system for accurately attributing content to the right people.

If CMOs can keep the talented members of their team happy and engaged, the only way internal campaign information will fall into enemy hands is if it is digitally intercepted. However, enhanced encryption and more user-friendly VPN platforms are proving to be reliable tools for staying ahead of the black hats.